Christmas 2012 DONE!

So I took my tree down yesterday and I am officially sick of animation movies which can mean only one thing….

Christmas 2012 is over.

It has been a good one. Having kids really does make it special and it was even better this year as Cherry really understood what was going on. She knew that Father Christmas was bringing her presents if she was good, something which Mr C reminded her of regularly!

I think I said this last year but my favourite part of Christmas is definitely the build-up to it, by the end of Christmas Day I always feel a bit uneasy at the excess of it all. The whole ‘oh let’s just eat and eat and eat until we are too stuffed to move’ thing just seems wrong but I do love the spending time with family part. As Iyla gets older I want to make sure that she doesn’t think it’s all just about presents as I don’t believe in spending a stupid amount of money on toys that she doesn’t really need. I said last year that I was going to volunteer or do something to help others and I haven’t because I’ve been too tired in this pregnancy but in future it is definitely something that I am going to work into my Christmas.

We aren’t religious so we can’t make it about that but I want to find another way of making it about more than just spending and eating.

We just bought Cherry one big present this year and gave a lot of her old stuff to charity to make room for it.

Christmas Eve was spent putting it together, it was so funny knowing that so many other people around the country were doing a similar thing, Instagram was full of photos of Dads building play kitchens! It took him 2 hours in the end but the end result was worth it…

It was brilliant seeing Cherry’s face on Xmas morning, it wasn’t a surprise as she had seen a photo of it a few weeks ago and knew that Father Christmas was bringing her a ‘Christmas kitchen’ but she kept saying ‘WOW WOW WOW’ and has spent hours playing with it.

On Christmas Eve we went round to my mum’s house in the morning then went on to Mr C’s sister’s house for the afternoon.

Mr C’s mum dressed up as Father Christmas to give the kids their presents which was hilarious, she covered her face so you couldn’t tell it was her!

Then on Christmas Day we spent the morning at home before going round to Mr C’s dad’s house for Christmas dinner.

Cherry’s Christmas Day outfit, chosen entirely by her!

We did also get her a Noddy doll because she is obsessed with him at the moment and she hasn’t been anywhere without him since she opened it!

Then on Boxing Day we went round to Mr C’s mum’s house for some food and drinks. Cherry wore the pink fluffy gilet that my mum bought her, this girl really does love pink, and of course Noddy had to come…

It really was a lovely Christmas, although it was missing a bit of snow, or at the very least a bit of frost!

When we got home I took the tree down as it was annoying me and taking up too much room. I always get sick of it pretty quickly after Xmas Day. I am now ready to move on and look forward to the New Year, and having a new baby!